Using type font characteristics to communicate brand personality of new brands

This research explores whether the type font used to represent a brand name (such as in logos or packaging) influences consumers’ perceptions of the brand's personality. Drawing on the semantic influence of type font framework, we conducted three experimental studies involving type fonts with a wide range of design characteristics: Study 1 shows that type font characteristics (naturalness, elaborate, harmony, flourish and weight) influence brand personality perceptions (excitement, sincerity, sophistication, competence and ruggedness). Type font naturalness, harmony and flourish emerge as the most important type font characteristics evoking higher levels of most personality dimensions. Study 2 extends the research to new brand names and finds that the effect of naturalness in type font designs is a key driver to eliciting brand personality dimensions. Study 3 then explores whether type font characteristics and type font color interactively affect brand personality dimensions. The results show that the influence of type font color on brand personality perceptions is independent of the impact of the type font itself. These results provide initial guidelines for type font selection to achieve desired brand personality and raise questions for future research.

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